The Worst Mess of my Life: Naked in a Public High School!
Posted: Wednesday, July 20, 2011
by Paul Schroeder
alien / demonic attachment
I used to be in an awful habit of sometimes not wearing underwear; I had often thought," I want my 'boys' to move and float freely".
However, that fashionless quirk once caused a serious' costume malfunction' that backfired to almost jeopardize my career and my very life!
Once, in an English Literature Senior class, teaching a class in Comparative World Religions, I discovered, after the class period bell had rung, that my pants had badly ripped on a nail.
I approached and peevishly asked the sewing teacher, who had a sewing class next door to my classroom, if she could possibly repair it, while I waited?
She smiled and said that it would take only a moment, to fix it
She was a tiny, sweet old lady with her hair done up in a white bun, whose room was filled with the clatter of sewing machines, all closely attended by an all girl class population.
She had smiled and had instantly agreed and had told me to remove my pants, inside of the teacher's bathroom, also around the corner from my classroom, and to surrender those pants to her pupil monitor, who would wait outside of the bathroom door; she would gladly retrieve them to me, repaired, "in a nonce".
A full two minutes after I had done what she said, bells everywhere clanged loudly in rhythmic series of 'threes'; as I stood there half naked, familiar clangs of the fire drill bell rang out, and in profound shock, I heard the muted sounds of all students lining up, en masse to exit the building!
The silence of the building, now emptied, chilled me to the marrow; I waited, semi naked and alone for seven long minutes!
I was left all alone, in an empty Senior High School, now suddenly half naked and forgotten, in a third floor faculty bathroom, during a fire drill; I was waiting, standing with no pants or underwear on!
After five minutes of utter silence, in a fretful agony, I finally heard the multitude sounds of 3200 shuffling pairs of shoes, returning.
More time passed, but there was no knock on the door, no repaired pants; I couldn't make my way back around the corner of the hallway, to the sewing room, to investigate, as I was without underwear briefs!
First, a cold chill and then a warmth flush, both of horror, alternately suffused through me.
I poked my head out of the bathroom door, and as a talking head, managed to call out to a random passing pupil, asked if he would assist me; would he go to the sewing room, just around the corner from the bathroom to call the sewing room teacher to quickly return to my rescue?!
After barely a minute, the unknown Good Samaritan pupil returned to me.
He said that the room was dark and empty; that the program on the door announced that the sewing room's teacher was at a scheduled break, for lunch!
I only imagined what would happen to me, if she had left for the day!
I plaintively begged this unknown pupil not to continue on to his approaching class, that I would give him a note to excuse his lateness as service to me; would he please, in God's name, run down three floors to the teacher's cafeteria, in the basement, to find and relay my panic stricken message to the sewing teacher?
I began slowly to quietly mentally curse that little sweet old lady.
Staff, later told me, that although she was very good natured, she was notoriously a very forgetful staff member!
I must have surely died a thousand deaths!
I waited and prayed, prayed, cursed and waited.
My life swam before my eyes.
What would I do if she had gone home, for lunch or gone homee, for the day!?“I was arrested once in Germany for public nudity. I thought it was a topless beach - it was. . . . .a shipyard Madonna”
What if there had been a REAL fire?!
After many more minutes, suddenly, there she was , knocking at the teacher's bathroom door, embarrassed but holding my returned and repaired pants up to me; she apologized profusely for having forgotten all about me!
I never ever left my house for any reason whatsoever, without underwear, from that time on.
Only in retrospect, much later did I manage to calm down enough to consider laughing at my chilling predicament mess, the near ending of my career in teaching;
I would have easily and surely made the newspapers and the six o'clock news..
.
"I was arrested once in Germany for public nudity. I thought it was a topless beach - it was. . . . .a shipyard"
Madonna
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Top-level comments on this article: (7 total)What a mess!! and funny tooPlease log in to respond to this comment.Thanks, Deborah,
It was, at the time, hardly funny!Please log in to respond to this comment.
Almost caught with your pants down, huh Paul?Please log in to respond to this comment.Can you imagine!
Like a nightmare!Please log in to respond to this comment.
ahh, high school and those memories, eh, Paul?Please log in to respond to this comment.My students never suspected that a little fruit was out of the loom!~Please log in to respond to this comment.
Ahh, those were the days! Did that happen around the time of the "locked in the classroom with the repugnant gaseous odor?" Or is that as Paul Harvey would have said, "the rest of the story?":-)Please log in to respond to this comment.No, at a later time; teaching, in retrospect, was just chock full of ribald indignities!Please log in to respond to this comment.
The things we can get into. All's well that ends well! Quite the mess and told with your humor.Please log in to respond to this comment.You are a stalwart fan and my cheap ego is now sufficiently stroked!Please log in to respond to this comment.Your ego would have really been stoked if I were there with some of our SW ladies - we'd have cheered. Actually one of us would have brought you a twig with lots of big leaves on it.Please log in to respond to this comment.I entered the school dressed like Fred Astaire, but you have me leaving the building, to the sound of female applause, dressed like Fred Flintstone!!??Please log in to respond to this comment.How about this Paul? I was thinking more along the lines of the great Greek statues - wearing nothing but leaves, fig leaves that is.Please log in to respond to this comment.Applause would have completely traumatized me; rather than leave that room, bottom naked, I would have wrapped myself in a large American flag, that somehow custodians would have brought me.Please log in to respond to this comment.
Hilarious! But I'm wondering- what would you have done even if you had been wearing underwear? Remember the saying: never get caught with your pants down! LOL- P. S.- The female applause would have remained to be seen.......Please log in to respond to this comment.What's comedy to all, is often tragedy for someone; if a 300 pound woman falls down the stairs, that's comedy.
But, if that's your overweight grandmother who tumbles, however, that's a tragedy.
It's all perspective.
Naked in high school is a tale of a personal tragedy mess, surely NOT one of hilarity.......
Please log in to respond to this comment.Some tragedies can be seen as funny in retrospect; especially when we realize that some foolish thing we ourselves did or said, caused the tragedy. We can then laugh at our own mistakes-when we acknowledge them as foolish and take responsibility for the consequences- thereby acknowledging that we too are capable of making foolish mistakes. We should never lose the ability to laugh at ourselves. When we change the way we look at things-the things we look at change.
Why do you think so many of the people who commented saw this as funny?Please log in to respond to this comment.
Too funny Paul. Too funny.Please log in to respond to this comment.As you were Lady Godiva, for this past Halloween, you, also, must fully understand the horror and sublime nature of public nudity...
I could never compete with that image, you sustained.......Please log in to respond to this comment.There you go again with that humour of yours. Me? Lady Godiva? Now that's hilarious!Please log in to respond to this comment.I can see it Brianna..... get a horse and have a go at it- you've got the gutzbah!Oh- be sure to buy an ankle-length long wig.....and we want pictures.LLOLPlease log in to respond to this comment.
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